






'^^ 
"^^ 






o V 




^^Hainptoi] Institute, 



1868 

T O 



i&&^ 



TS WORK 



FOR 



WO S.ACES. 



Hampton, Va. 
Normal School Press Print,, 






Printed by Colored and Indian 
Students trained in the 
office of the Hamp- 
ton Institute. 



Dpefatopy. 



\HE letters written by Hele^i W. Ludlow 

and Elaine Goodale, which for^n the 

larger part of this pamphlet, give the reszdt 

of the experiences of these two ladies during their 

visits to various Indian agencies and reservations 

in the Northwest, from which they have just re- 

tur?ied. It is believed that the value of S7uh close 

personal observations needs no editorial comment 

whatever. 

M. F. A. 



Yhe) Story 6^ the; SdHooiv, 



BY M. F. A. 



.(^pHE following compilation of facts and descriptions has 
^^ '^ been made with a viev^ of introducing, under new aus- 
pices, and it is hoped, to new friends, the work which has, for 
some years been going on at the Hampton School, and which has 
come to be. directly and indirectly, a factor in the development 
of two races. Its publication is, in the first instance, a result of 
the opportunity offered by the Fair, held in Boston during the 
present month by the ladies of King's Chapel, and is in reply to 
the demand which is felt to exist for special knowledge in 
regard to the possibilities of the Indian under the conditions 
which are experimentally imposed upon him when he appears 
at Hampton as a fellow student of the Negro. That these con- 
ditions are somewhat peculiar and perhaps exceptionally favor- 
able, is the belief, we think, of those who are familiar with the 
growth and character of the school, and it is for that reason that 
we offer to those who are strangers to it, the following resume 
of an educational experiment from which the unknown quanti- 
ties are being rapidly eliminated. 

About three miles from Fortress Monroe, on the shores of 
one of the many "branches " which ebb and flow through the 
green meadows of the Virginia coast, there stood at the close of 
the civil war, a half dozen houses, which, having escaped fire 
and sword, were still habitable, although it was by no means 
their rightful owners, who at that time were their occupants. 
On the other side of the creek lay the ruins of the burned town 
of Hampton, and the level shore between the natural barrier of 
Hampton creek and the protecting guns of Fortress Monroe, 



was crowded with the tents and cabins of "Contrabands" whom 
the first impulse of freedom had carried within the Union lines, 
to present themselves, a blessing or a blight, as might be, to the 
nation which had freed them. In one of these half dozen pic- 
turesque old houses — to be transferred later to another — was be- 
gun a school for freedmen, which gradually, under the care of 
the American Missionary Association, came to assume propor- 
tions which showed beyond question that situation, surround- 
ings and opportunity had combined to make it one of the edu- 
cational centres of the South, and when to these was added the 
personal inspiration of the men and women who first took the 
work in hand, it is little wonder that from this small beginning 
developed a rapid and wholesome growth, which it is not too 
much to say has done something appreciable towards unravel- 
ing the complicated tangle of race questions whose powerful 
web has gone near to strangle the nation. 

Briefly, the facts of this growth stand as follows : — 
Beginning in iS68 with 15 students and two teachers as a 
mission school, it was, so to speak, forced, two years later, into 
an independent life, and was in 1870 incorporated as a private 
school, with an endowment of 200 students, and 17 teachers. 
Its total real estate, including 195 acres of land, was valued at 
$183,000, while its income, exclusive of the building fund, was 
about $30,000, with a debt of $5,000. From that date to the 
present it has depended for its support upon contributions from 
the North and upon they early grant of $10,000 to it m its capacity 
as an Agricultural School, by the State of Virginia. 

In 1878, as a result of circumstances which seemed at the 
time hardly more than accidental, a party of seventeen Indians 
were brought by Captain Pratt from St. Augustine, Florida, 
where they had been for three years under his care a& 
prisoners of war. From this nucleus has grown the Indian De- 
partment of the Hampton School, and the opportunity thu& 



7 

given to test the School methods and influences upon a race 
which, both in its history and characteristics is quite dissimilar 
to the Negro, has been gladly embraced by the supporters as 
well as the officers of the Institution. 

For the present, 1 20 of these Indians are provided for by 
the United States Government to the extent of $167.00 per 
year, but for the cost of their tuition and the necessary buildings 
as well as for any increase of number, we are still obliged 
to look to private charity. 

The school is owned and controlled by a board of seventeen 
trustees, who reside chiefly in the Middle and New England 
States and represent six religious denominations, no one of which 
has a majority. It has land and improvements valued at 
$400,000, is free from debt, and by its charter is not subject to 
taxation. 

To its roll call, answer 617 students, 140 of them Indians, 
averaging 17 years of age, of whom a little less than one half are 
girls, while 350 children come under its influence as pupils 
of the "Butler." a graded day school on its grounds, 
controlled and officered by the Normal School. Total, 967. 

The expenditure for the year, exclusive of the cost of build- 
ings, and of the government appropriation for Indians, is about 
$65,000. The seventy-two officers, teachers, heads of de- 
partments and clerks, cost $35,000; $15,000 are absorbed by 
general expenses, repairs, insurance, fuel, etc., $12,000 are 
required to make up the loss on students' labor, who earn 
$45,000 while deserving students receive personal assistance to 
the extent of about $3,000. 

And although to-day we are obliged to trust as we trusted fif- 
teen years ago to the generosity of individuals for our support, 
no better proof of the strength of the school is needed than the 
fact that this generosity, though in no sense pledged to a con- 



tinuance, has never yet failed to reply to the increased demand 
upon it. 

The $10,000 which we receive from the State, and $5,000 
interest on invested funds, leave still $50,000 to be collected an- 
nually. Of this amount one half has heretofore come from 
scholarships of $70.00, eacli of which is considered to pay for 
the education of a student, who is himself held responsible for 
his board, clothes and books, the greater part of the cost of 
which he defrays by his own labor. The rest has come from 
gifts for general purposes and from legacies. 

It is, we are convinced, to this labor system closely and 
faithfully applied Irom the outset, both to Negroes and Indians, 
that we owe to a great extent the character of our graduates. 
The Academic course covers practically four years, for in a ma- 
jority of cases the three years' Normal course is preceded by a 
year in the Night School, during which time the students work 
■eight or ten hours daily and study two hours in the evening 
an arrangement which, as may be imagined, weeds out effectu- 
.ally the incapable or unwilling. 

The entire course includes, or more correctly begin? and 
•ends with the essentials of a good English education. Nothing 
more is attempted, because experience has shown us that no- 
thing more is needed to fit our students for the work which is 
before them. 

Special Normal instruction is given, the fundamentals of 
political economy and civil government are dwelt upon, for our 
pupils are to become all of them, citizens, most of them teachers, 
and many of them leaders, but our standard of scholarship has 
.been carefully gauged to meet the necessities which confront us. 

It is to our Industrial Departments and their discipline of 
■head and hand that we largely trust in building up those accu- 
rate habits of thought and deed, which are, above all, the need 
■of these undisciplined races, and it is for that reason that ou 



outlay for the appliances of labor represents so large a share of 
our expenses. A. proportion of this outlay, in some depart- 
ments all of it, comes back to us, but it is the educational and 
mot the market value of our labor system that we depend upon, 
and while this appears in no balance sheet of the school, it does 
most assuredly make a good showing for itself in the charac- 
ter and therefore in the influence of our students after they 
leave us. 

First of all and more than all, do the young men and wo- 
men who come to us, need to be taught the worth and beauty 
of honest work, and through even the lowest forms of labor they 
can, we believe, be led to see and appreciate the meaning of 
the highest. 

To Negro and Indian alike the gospel of work comes as a 
revelation, and while it is not always accepted without a strug- 
gle, yet none the less is its influence healthful and strengthen- 
ing, and the record of our graduates of both races shows that 
Labor and Prayer are weapons of which most of them have 
learned, in part at least, the unconquerable power. 

Our five hundred colored graduates, with an equal 
number who for one or another reason could not complete the 
course, are most of them at work in the public schools of the 
South, and active in tne Sunday school and temperance causes. 
Nine tenths of them have done weli. Of the one hundred and 
forty-five Indians who have returned, after three years here, to 
their homes, two-thirds are doing well as teachers, farmers, 
mechanics, laborers, etc., while not one has become a renegade. 
Their great difficulty is want of steady employment. 

This is the showing which the Hampton School makes for 
tself, and while the time is past wJien it needs to make any ex- 
cuse for its existence, the hour has surely arrived when it is 
justified in making a plea for an assured continuance of life; 
..and for the promise of this, it still awaits the action of its friends. 
JIampton, Va., November, i8Sj. 



HAMPTON'S INDIAN STUDENTS 
AT HOME. 



BY HELEN W. LUDLOW. 



In this practical age, every cause that appeals to the people^ 
must be put to the most practical of tests. So, theretore, must 
the cause of Indian education. 

First, there is the School test. Will Indians study? Can 
they learn? Hampton answers with her hundred and forty In- 
dian students, acquiring all the branches of elementary educa- 
tion through the medium of a language itself the most difficult 
of their studies : with her thirty Indian members of the Nor- 
mal school, keeping up with their English speaking comrades 
m all its classes ; with her nine Indian graduates who have com- 
pleted the full Normal course, one of them contemplatmg a 
professional education. 

Then, there is the Industrial test. Will Indians work? Can 
they be broken in to civilized pursuits? 

Hampton answers with her farms, and work rooms, and 
training shops, where Indian apprentices are working under 
white masters and side by side with a race long trained to labor 
— as farmers, carpenters, harness makers, blacksmiths, tinsmiths, 
shoemakers, printers, tailors, seamstresses, house-workers — pro- 
ducing results that stand the most impartial and inexorable of 
all tests — that of the market. 

Thousands of visitors from every section of the country 
and from abroad, have for the last six years seen the applica- 
tion of these tests of the school and industrial training in In- 



dian education at Hampton. Thej'^ are virtually, perhaps, no 
longer in question among intelligent people. 

There remains the Home test — -most practical, most im- 
portant, crucial. Will Indians stay civilized ? Or is it true, 
as a Western paper feelingly puts it, that : 

"The Indian boys and girls in our various in- 
stitutions of learning show themselves to be apt 
scholars. But the experience is that as soon as 
they are returned to their tribe, they don the 
blanket and return to the customs of their fath- 
ers and mothers." 

Is this the " experience .''" Hampton has no wish to work for 
a cause whose failure is a foregone conclusion ; no right to ask 
for help in such a work. 

To study this and the general Indian question on the 
ground, that the school itself and the friends of the red man 
might better know the actual facts about him, I was sent out last 
July, and spent the summer in the West, visiting especially the 
Sioux reservations in Dakota, from which most of our Indian 
students come, and where over a hundred of them, returned to 
their homes within the last five years, are now living. There, it 
any where the answer should be found. And, when it is found, 
should it not be acted upon ? 

In my exceedingly interesting journey, which I wish could 
be as easily taken as the trip to Hampton by all who are hon- 
estly interested in the question, I visited five agercies along 
the Missouri river in Dakota and one in Wisconsin, where were 
living seventy-three returned Indian students — twenty-seven 
young women and girls, forty six young men and boys, who 
had been returned to their homes from Hampton at different 
times, from one to five years ago. Forty-five of these I saw 
myself, talking with them freely, and visiting most of their 
homes. Of all, I had separate and full accounts from their 
agents, missionaries, teachers, employers and acquaintances 



The agencies I vnsited were Yankton, Lower Brule, Crow Creek, 
Standing Rock and Fort Berthold in Dakota — staying from four 
to ten days at each, and two days at the Menomonee reserva- 
tion in Wisconsin. 

This is the record, good and bad : 

Of the seventy-three, four and only four — " don the blank- 
et. " One of these is an epileptic girl, another a consumptive 
boy who was only a few months at Hampton, and in his weak- 
ness finds his accustomed dress the easiest; wearing his blanket 
as a white invalid would his dressing gown. The other two are 
young women who, though not considered good material at 
Hampton, ought to know better, but have married in Indian 
style and gone back to Indian life. Four others are reported 
as " bad," have done nothing criminal, and keep themselves in 
citizen's dress, but are " lazy and troublesome," their influence 
and example on the wrong side. Nineteen more have not 
had a continuously good record, but are doing fairly well now. 
One of them went back to his blanket for a time, but the influ- 
ences of the new life were not wholly lost and have started him 
again in the white man's road, as great a witness to their pow- 
er perhaps as could be given. 

Forty-six have done very well indeed — some of them very 
remarkably so — constantly since their return : working as they 
have had opportunity ; the boys at their trades, farming or other 
manual labor, clerking or teaching; the girls as teachers or as- 
sistants in the schools, helping their paients or keeping house 
for themselves, five having mariied since their return home. 

Forty-six out of seventy-three — would it be a bad proportion 
for the honor roll, of any white "institution of learning?" 
And to these may fairly De added six who, after spending one or 
more years at home with a good record, returned to school at 
their own desire and were doing well there when I was at their 



13 

homes. Three of the fortj'-six have since followed their exam- 
ples. 

Of the fifteen who have died at their homes, the only one who 
even partially returned to Indian garments, did so because he was 
too weak to work for others, but pathetically begged to be buried 
like a white man in the citizen's clothes sent him by a kind 
friend. One young man yielded to the temptations of a mili- 
tary camp and died in consequence; two others did not do con- 
tinuously well. The rest did all as well as they had physical 
strength and opportunity, two of them very finely. 

I have not included in these figures the agency of Cheyenne 
River, because I stopped there but a few hours, and obtained 
only a general instead of a detailed report. It was that •' The 
Hampton students are doing generally well. None have re- 
turned to camp life." 

Twenty-eight girls and boys, sent home in July to vari- 
ous agencies are also not included. Twenty- one of these I saw 
myself, or were reported to me as having gone to work and 
promising well. 

Statistics are always dry. Perhaps my readers will rather go 
with me to the agencies and look for themselves at some of our 

Hampton Students at Home. 
What is a typical Indian home of the present day ? A log 
cabin of one room, with two windows and a door, earth floor, and 
an earth roof through which a crazy stovepipe finds its way 
without the aid of a chimney. Inside, the cook stove in the 
centre, and ranged round the sidus, bunks and beds enough to ac- 
commodate — on them and under them— the easily accommoda- 
ted family of men, women, children and dogs. Sacks of corn and 
dried vegetables alternate with perhaps a chair or two and, inevi- 
tablv, one or more Sarstog-i trunks that have an air of surprise 
at their surroundings. This is the winter mansion. Banked 



H 

with sod it is warm ; only too warm and close. When six or eight 
months' occupation has made it quite unbearable even to its 
owners, it is abandoned to the house cleaning of sun and air. 
The summer residence rises conveniently near it — a canvas te- 
pee ; little more than a sleeping place, most of the family life being 
carried on under the still more airy and hygienic brush arbor 
beyond, curtained by flapping sheets of "jerking" beef. Here 
the men smoke, the women work, the children tumble about 
blissfully careless of dirt, and the puppies tumble over them 
as blissfully oblivious of the possible fate of the soup kettle 
swinging on its gypsy poles outside.under the blue dome which 
grandly completes the suite. 

How many of my Fair readers will shudder at this descrip- 
tion and then go home to a good dinner whose cook came out 
of a bog cabin ? 

There are various departures from this typical home, of 
course. Some of the cabins have two or mare rooms ; some 
have floors and shingled roofs and an upper story ; there are 
some frame houses. 

But can anything good come out of, or be found in such a 
place ? Will you call with me at one on the 

Yankton Reservation. 

A cabin of the type I have described, with tepee, brush ar- 
bor, gypsy kettle and all. It is July, and the owners are in their 
summer quarters. But their deserted winter house has been 
taken possession of, rented for the summer by a Hampton girl 
and her husband, waiting the building of a new one of their 
own. The Indian family are doubtless equally astonished at 
their own good luck and the demoralizing effect of civilization. 
But they are going to learn a lesson or two in housekeeping. 
Soap and sand have been called in to the assistance of sun 
and air. They see how a house can be habitable all 



15 

the year round. Habitable indeed — none of you will ob- 
ject to sitting with me as often as I like to and I like to, 
very often ; in this tidy little home. The earth floor is swept as 
clean as can be; the windows are ".traps to catch sunbeams." So 
are the bright tin pans on the shelf, and even the polished cook 
stove. So, I think, is the young housekeeper, with her bright 
smile, her clean calico gown, and her cheery ways, as she shows 
us with pride her various treasures and devices : the corner cup- 
board, the hanging shelves, the bed with its gay patch-work 
quilt, the Hampton pictures, the little clock; above all, the sew- 
ing machine, and the tasteful dress she has made on it "l^rom a 
picture in Butterick's." 

•' She was your prize scholar at Hampton." I hear you say — 
" an exceptional case." Not that at all, but a girl of quick fin- 
gers and warm impulses, greatly needing good influences, which 
she Ijas fortunately secured in her marriage to a kind, steady and 
industrious young fellow whom we find at his post in charge of 
the engine at the agency grist-mill. She is an example of what 
the average Indian girl can become under favoring circumstances, 
with a fair chance. Not far from her, we find another who has 
met a sadder fate. Married to a worthless scamp whose rascal, 
ity has lost him the chance of employment at the Agency, she 
longs, too late, to go back to school. We stop at her door to 
talk with her, and glancing in, see the disordered pallet on the 
floor, which is her part in the accommodations of the room she 
shares with the family she is " visiting"-— her only home. But she 
has not gone back to Indian dress, and her more favored friend 
is trying to keep a hold on her for good. The ambitions of the 
happier young bride are fostered, I dont doubt, by the marriage 
of her sister, who was one of Hampton's stars, to a white man, 
a Government industrial teacher, who has taken her to a pleas- 
ant home on another agency, where she is helping him teach 
her people. During my visit, another of our Hampton girls at 



i6 

a distant part of the reservation, was married to an industrious 
y oung farmer. 

In the printing office of the lapi Owaye — the organ of the 
Presbyterian Mission, we find a Hampton student setting type 
as he used to for the Southern Worktnan at Hampton. Last 
winter he was a successful teacher in the Government school 
and could have the position again. Shall we accept his invita- 
tion to go home with him and see his wife ? A pretty, neat, good 
natured looking girl she is. They are living still with the old 
folks, and we will politely ignore a few disorders while |oe takes 
pains to tell us they will have a house of their own next 
year. I know it will rival Mary's. 

And what are our other Hampton students doing .' Will 
you drive out over the prairie five miles and see David's farm, 
and gratify his just pride by cutting a few specimen stalks o 
" as good wheat as there is in Dakota," to take East.'' Next 
Sunday we shall find him sowing the good seed — let us hope 
into good ground if it does look rather stony — in Mr. William- 
son's Sunday school. 

Of the three other Hampton boys at Yankton, two are 
farming, one of them married, one is a consumptive, but worked 
while he could. Of the two other young women, one is the epi- 
leptic whom I mentioned, the other is reported living with her 
parents, and doing well. 

At Lower Hkulk 

We shall see what a Hampton Indian girl can be in her par- 
ent's home — a home of the better class : helpful, cheerful, the 
m.ain stay and quiet influence ior good. We shall see too what 
a Hampton returned student can do for his Indian father — an 
old chief, stubbornly opposed to progress, — when he takes a 
manly stand for right ; shake his prejudices and change his 
heart to work for education instead of against it. We shall find 



17 

one of the Hampton Indian families, father, mother and baby 
boy, soon to move into the house built for them by the father 
who learned his trade at Hampton, and helped build his cottage 
there. Among the twenty-two returned students, six girls and 
sixteen boys, we shall find alas, the four reported " bad and 
troublesome," and two of those who have "returned to the blank- 
et"— of whom there were four out of seventy-three, you will 
remember. Of the rest, two are " doing fairly well now; " twelve 
have done very well since their return, working, two as teach- 
ers, the rest as farmers, or attending school or helping at home. 
The young men who have just returned are also at work. One 
ot them will return to the East to study for the ministry. 
At Crow Creek 
We find all of the Hampton boys at work, under the fos- 
tering care of Agent Gasmann : a teacher, a carpenter, black- 
smiths, farmers, a policeman, — ten or a dozen, counting the newly 
arrived who do not mean to to be behind the rest and are great- 
ly encouraged at finding work all ready for them. Of the teri 
young women and girls — four of them new comers, — two are 
wives who returned with their husbands. One, married in In- 
dian fashion, completes the list of the four returned to the 
blanket ; the rest are doing well ; three of them are in delicate 
health. If we call at the two-story house of Chief Wizi, we 
shall find that he has kept the best room in it for his grand- 
daughter, our little Amy. It is what we should expect of this 
Christian chief who, when his grandson died at Hampton years 
ago, called his people together and told them, " If only one of 
our children returns to teach us the white man's road, it would 
be worth the loss of all the rest." 

At Standing Rock 
Let us first join our rejoicings with his four thousand In- 
dians,' over the reappointment of their good "father". Agent 



i8 

McLaughlin, for another four years. It means to them a new- 
lease of life and hope and progress ; to us, some faith that pub- 
lic sentiment, and its servant the Government, are growing 
wise enough to recognize first rate work, and leave it unspoiled 
by partisan politics. 

We hear only good reports from our sixteen Hampton boys 
and girls ; even the three who seemed, for a time, on the wrong 
track, are doing well ; two of them married and settled. None 
have ever gone back to the blanket, and none have died. 

Among the many signs of progress on this most interesting 
agency, perhaps it was natural that, to me, one of the most in- 
teresting was a little white school house on the edge of the 
camp of the late "hostiles", part of Sitting Bull's band : a little 
white school house with a belfry, and in the doorway two Hamp- 
ton girls standing to greet their unexpected guests: Rosa, the 
graceful, dignified young teacher, and Frances, the smiling 
housekeeper, proud to show their pretty school room and their 
tidy little menace. I did not wonder at all to hear that a Con- 
gressman prominent in Indian legislation was surprised by that 
sight of the results of Eastern education, into the expression of 
his admiring conviction : "Well, this solves the Indian problem!" 
Given such trained teachers in such a school house to every 
thirty Indian children on the reservations, and how long will 
the solution take } 

Another Hampton girl is her husband's assistant teacher 
in a school for eighty, on a remote part of the reservation, be- 
tween two farming settlements, one of them from Sitting Bull's 
band, scattered out on their separate farms, under the agent's 
wise encouragement. 

Of the young men, one has married a daughter of old Sit- 
ting Bull, but instead of living on his rich father-in-law, as he 
might, supports his wife by his carpenter's trade learned at Hamp- 
ton. Another, with his wife, and fine little boy, lives at the 



19 

agency in charge of the Government stables, is accumulating 
stock of his own, and doing well in every way. Two are .black- 
smiths, two herders ; one little fellow of fourteen, whom we 
hated to part with at Hampton, we find putting up his cows for 
the night. He takes care of his mother's farm with his hired 
man, and is the head of the family. The new comers all went 
to work at once in the harvest field. Four from this agency 
have voluntarily gone to Hampton a second time, for a further 
course of training. The desire for education is so wide awake 
and eager on this reservation, that the pressure of applicants for 
Hampton was greater than could be responded to this fall. It 
would have been easy to bring on thirty or more at once. 

At Fort Berthold, 

We find Mandans, Rees, and Gros Ventres, huddled in a close 
village, for a hundred years the last stand of the tribes against 
their formidable enemies the Sioux and Crees. Under the be- 
nign reign of peace and industry at last, even these poor people 
have begun to feel the impulse of progress, and to scatter out 
over the reservation on separate farms, which ought at once to 
be secured to them with a good title. They have now no treaty 
right to the soil. In such circumstances, it is only wonderful 
that our Hampton boys and girls at Berthold have done as well 
as most of them have. We hear as fluent English from them 
as when they left Hampton. We find one of the girls an as- 
sistant teacher in the sewing room of the Government school. 
At their own and their parents' desire, she ard a younger girl 
return this fall to Hampton. One of the young women is re- 
spectably married to a white man, well-to-do, and kind, we hear, 
"while he is sober." Of the boys, two are at the Government 
school, one is in charge of its shoe shop, teaching four appren- 
tices his trade. The other two work as they have opportunity. 



This completes the list of Hampton's returned students 
whom I saw or heard from in Dakota. Of the four young men 
at the Menomonee agency in Wisconsin, three of whom I talk- 
ed with, two have not done continuously as well as they might 
but for the temptation to drink, though both have worked well 
at times. One other has always been industrious. One, who 
completed the normal course at Hampton, one of its first Indian 
graduates in '82, I heard teach three classes very successfully. 
It was far better work than I have heard from some white teach- 
ers. I felt proud of our Hampton boy. 

Two or three questions remain to be answered. 

"If Eastern education is so effective, why not send all the 
Indian children to Eastern schools, and give up those of the a- 
gencies ? Why not, at least, keep all who do go East, and nev- 
er return them to the dangers of reservation life.-*" 

To the first question the sufficient answer is. you can't; the 
bulk of the work will always have to be done in the West. Of 
the 41,000 Indian children of school age, it cannot be expected 
that over five thousand can be educated ofi the reservations ; 
perhaps not over fifteen hundred east of the Mississippi. 

As for the second; you would not get any children with 
the consent of their parents, for such a purpose ; and, if it were 
possible, would it be desirable ? The love of Indian parents for 
their children is the strongest — it seems to me the best — trait in 
their character. Call it animal instinct if you will, it is the 
strongest hold one can have on them. It seems to me, rather, 
a divinely appointed means of grace and progress into better 
things. There are those who will yield to the temptations of 
camp life — some would fall before those of civilized society — 
but the influence of those who take a bold stand for the right, 
like young Medicine Bull at Lower Brule, or who live simply 
honest, industrious lives, as so many of our returned students 



21 

have been able to do, cannot be calculated. And, it seems to 
me, there is a reflex influence for good in such a life for others, 
that a life of mere consideration of one's own advantage will 
miss. The day school and boarding school right among them 
have an influence upon an Indian community as real as a New 
England school house has on an Eastern one : far less in degree 
— then all the more needed. It is an important fact also 
which should be well understood, that the conditions of life on 
the reservation are so far changing under these and other in- 
fluences, that the returned student does not return to one howl- 
ing waste of barbarism, but finds a progressive party, to which 
he can ally himself for support and association, even among his 
own people : a progressive party, in the minority, but active and 
increasing in numbers and strength. 

" Then why not educate all in the West, and save trans- 
portation ? " 

The answer to that is easy too. In the first place, there 
are not such facilities in the Western schools — especially for 
normal and industrial trainmg — as Eastern ones afford, even 
counting out the great educational influence of travel 
and contact with Eastern civilization. If there were such 
facilities, irregularity of attendance and the absence of good 
home influence would make them of less avail. Strong con- 
firmation of this statement comes just as I write, in a letter from 
a missionary among the Pi Utes of Nevada, requesting admis- 
sion for a promising Indian boy at Hampton. He says : 

" We have schools here at the reservation, but it 
is not advisable for him to attend, as they -are not 
as good as the public schools and, being constantly 
in the midst of the tribe, he unavoidably would 
grow up full of Indian notions." 



He adds : 

" I have been among these Indians for three years 
and have reached two conclusions ; 

First — These people can be best civilized by 
educated teachers of their own. 

Second — Those teachers must be educated out- 
side of reservation schools such as those with which 
I am acquainted." 
In the second place, the education of Indians at Easterrt 
schools is needed, to educate white public sentiment at the 
East. While there is no thinning out of the Western schools, 
and every child brought East is a clear gain in Indian educa- 
tion, this impulse to Eastern public sentiment has done more 
than anything else to help the general cause of Indian educa- 
tion and civilization. Every school at the agencies — govern- 
ment or mission — has felt its lift. As it has been put : " It is 
not too much to say that every child on the reservations has- 
shared indirectly the benefit of the Eastern schools." 
Then there is 

The Health Question. 

It is serious ; and I was surprised to find generally that the 
diseases which make it so, while they are laid to the charge of 
contact with white civilization originally, are most prevalent and 
fatal among the pure bloods. On reservations where — as on most 
— the births exceed the deaths, further inquiry brings out the 
fact that most of the births are among the half breeds, most of 
the deaths among the pure bloods. The mixed bloods are largely 
the descendants of the early English, Scotch and French fur 
traders and explorers who married Indian wives ; the first two 
being considered generally the best ancestry. The facts are , 
interesting. The Indians are increasing on the reservations. 



23 

but like our foreign elements they are being absorbed in- 
to our^common population. The Indian problem is likely to dis- 
appear in the next century for want of a distinguishable 
Indian race. The last Stockbridge Indian claiming lull 
blood died six years ago. The white Cherokees, Choctaws 
and Creeks of Indian Territory are other illustrations of this 
prospect. 

Scrofula and consumption are the great scourges of all the 
tribes ; even the half breeds are by no means exempt. This is, 
in great measure, the result of improper and insufficient food,, 
and disregard of the commonest laws of health. The change to 
civilized life is no doubt trying to constitutions thus predis- 
posed to disease. But there is no use in lamenting over that ; 
the change is inevitable, and it only remains to help them pull 
through it. Every Indian child and youth whose constitution 
can be improved by proper care and treatment, and instruction,, 
helps to save for better things, a race which, with all its weak- 
ness and wildness, possesses traits which would make no un- 
worthy addition to the sum of American civilization. 
Hampton, Va., Nov. iSSj. 



24 



DOES CIVILIZATION CIVILIZE 



BY ELAINE GOODALK. 



Public sentiment is ready for a long step forward on the In- 
dian question. We of the East have been dealing with the in- 
dividual — it is time we began to deal with the masses. The ca- 
pacity, the brightness, the lovable traits, the general hopeful- 
ness of the Indian children, have been demonstrated by the 
schools over and over again. It is time now to rise above the 
old superstition that Indian life is a hopeless mass of barbar- 
ism, and to recognize the hopefulness of the Indian commu- 
nity — the inevitable change, transition, growth, which exist to- 
day on an Indian reservation. 

The political outlook has always been the one most dark 
and depressing. Here, first among selfish interests, the old 
unsettled dispute about the ownership of land becomes a cri- 
sis and a struggle. It is an unequal struggle at best. The great 
Sioux Reservation blocks the path of progress. After two un- 
successful efforts to gain possession of desirable land by unfair 
means, the Dawes' Sioux Bill, the result of careful statesman- 
ship and wise philanthropy, bids fair to be accepted by the 
country as a reasonable compromise between the necessities of 
civilization and the rights of the Indian. This bill, which pass- 
ed the Upper House last winter, and will be brought before 
Congress during the coming session in a slightly modified form, 
breaks up this vast territory into six smaller reservations and 
opens a broad highway between the civilization of Eastern Da- 
kota and the Black Hills. It provides for the purchase by 
the Government of some eleven millions of acres, and its sale to 



25 

actual settlers at the price of 50 cents an acre. From the sum 
thus obtained the Indians are to receive in installments 26,000 
head of American cattle and the remainder will be used as a 
permanent fund for educational purposes and to furnish indus- 
trial aids, at the discretion of the Department. Provision is 
also made for the individual Indian to homestead and take up 
land in severalty. 

The Indian Rights' Association, which aims to influence 
legislation through public opinion, and has gained some unex- 
pected victories over scheming politicians, is working for the 
bill. Mr. Herbert Welsh, who acts for it, has been on the 
ground this Fall with the three-fold object of preparing the 
minds of the Indians to treat for their land, sounding Western 
sentiment, and securing, if possible, the co-operation of the 
Territory, and obtaining from men of experience suggestions as 
to minor changes of boundary, etc., which are to be submitted to 
Senator Dawes at his own request. There is no doubt that 
Dakota is strongly in favor of the bill. It will be a more difficult 
matter to obtain the signatures of three-fourths of all the In- 
dians, without which it cannot become a law. At all the coun- 
cils which Mr. Welsh has held and which I have attended, in 
bare council rooms, mission chapels, Indian lodges, in the par- 
lor of the missionary and in the open air, this conservative feel- 
ing has been strong and strongly exp^-essed. 

The remarkably intelligent community of about one hun- 
dred families which has gathered about St. Stephen's Missiori on 
the Cheyenne River reserve, showed most appreciation of the 
case. One of their leading men called twice upon Mr. Welsh 
to obtain further information, and requested an abstract of the 
bill in Dakota for the more deliberate consideration of the coun- 
cil, which was i'mmediately drawn up and presented to him 
by the missionary. The Dakota clergy, an interesting body of 



26 

earnest and thinking men, fully realize the urgency of the situ- 
ation, and in private, strongly advocate the bill. But progressive 
ideas on the land question are subject at times to strange mis- 
understanding, and they will be forced to use their influence with 
more or less reserve and diplomacy. It is thought that a coun- 
cil of leadmg men among the Dakotas at Washington will aid 
in impressing the importance of this step upon the people. To 
gain their voluntary consent to the Dawes bill really means 
that they shall be taught to realize that they cannot perman- 
ently hold any surplus lands, and that individual use of land and 
an individual title to it, is their future protection. This is an 
immense advance in thought to be expected from a people no 
further on in civilization than are thousands at Pine Ridge, 
Rose Bud and Standing Rock. 

Many, however, are ready for it. There are hundreds of 
Indians on almost every Agency, living on and cultivating the 
land, who ought to receive titles, properly protected for a cer- 
tain number of years. An official survey is greatly needed, and 
allotments should be made at once to all who desire them. I saw 
most striking evidences of general progress in civilization at 
the Mission settlement before mentioned, sixty-five miles above 
Cheyenne River Agency. Six years ago these were wild "blan- 
ket Indians", now they are living in comfortable log houses, 
cultivating farms of from five to fifteen acres each, cutting 
from one to several hundred dollars worth of hay, wearing cit- 
izens' clothing, and most have accepted Christianity. They are 
nearly selt-supporting, receiving only one quarter rations, and 
some stay at home and follow the plow rather than make the 
three-days iourney necessary to draw them. The women have 
fully kept pace with the men. I found them neatly dressed, in 
neatly kept and well furnished homes, with well cared for chil- 
dren. It is universally the case that the worthless Indians and. 



27 

"coffee coolers", as they are called, hang about the Agency and 
are loath to be out of sight of the ration house, while the indus- 
trious and enterprising settle out on good farming land at high- 
ly inconvenient distances from the centre of supplies. 

As an instance of the discouragements which these people 
meet with in the struggle toward independence, I should like to 
tell a little story of the efforts of these St. Stephen's Mission 
Indians to raise wheat during the past year. They were already 
cultivating corn, potatoes, and raising a variety of remarkably 
fine garden vegetables, and Mr. Swift, the missionary, was de- 
termined to get them to advance a step and produce the one im- 
portant crop. He " preached wheat,'" as he he told me, with 
vast persistence for a number of weeks, and believing that ex- 
ample is better than precept, broke a few acres and put in the 
crop himse'.f. The seed and necessary implements for the Ind- 
ians were promised by the Agent, who also agreed to send up a 
farmer to instruct them how to prepare their ground, and later 
to harvest the crop. After repeated and trying delays, loo 
bushels of seed arrived, late, on the 15th of April. But there 
were no harrows. Mr. Swift lent his far and wide, two men 
constructed rude afifairs of brush, and the wheat was all in the 
ground. The skies smiled upon the enterprise, and every one 
of the twenty Indians who engaged in it had a bountiful harv- 
est. Now the real difficulties began. There were no reapers 
to cut the wheat— not even cradles — and after repeated appeals, 
Mr. Swift received a letter from the Agent, (which, curiously 
enough, he neglected to sign,) authorizing him to employ a 
man with a reaper from the other side of the river, to cut the 
Indians' wheat. Finding that these white men asked exorbitant 
prices, he used his own mowing machine instead, and hired 
Indians to run it. By this means the operation cost about half 
what it would otherwise have done. Nevertheless, when the 



28 

bills came in, the Agent declined to be responsible for them, and 
the missionary found himself some twenty-five dollars out of 
pocket by the transaction. 

Meanwhile the " Assistant farrqer " who was supposed to 
instruct these Indians in agriculture, had not made his appear- 
ance, and no one in the settlement knew how to bind or stack 
the grain. The indefatigable missionary finally learned to bind, 
and taught the Indians, and the wheat was stacked, not in very 
workmanlike fashion, "but as well as we knew how." To 
me, those top-heavy stacks of wheat which I saw in many an 
Indian corral, were eloquent of obstacles overcome. Yet all 
this labor seems likely to have been spent in vain. The thresh- 
ing machine repeatedly promised by the agent has not arrived 
and apparently will not arrive. The Indians look upon wheat- 
raising as a farce, and unless timely help comes, will receive a 
serious check in their brave efforts toward self-support. 

Other questions of political significance are the gradual re- 
duction of rations and the advisability of making annuity pay- 
ments in money instead of in goods. On the Great Sioux Re- 
serve we can study the ration system in all its stages. At San- 
tee the Indians receive no food whatever except for the old and 
infirm and for school children. Most of the Missouri River 
Indians have had their supplies diminished in proportion to their 
supposed capacity for self-support. The Indians at Pine Ridge 
and Rosebud still receive very large rations and the Agent at 
Pine Ridge ihinks that the beef ration ought to be diminished 
forty per cent, and the ration of beans and other cereals increased 
twenty per cent. The Indian is naturally a carnivorous animal, 
and it is civilizing to give him a greater proportion of vegetable 
food. Dr. McGillycuddy, who is known as one of the ablest men 
in the service, believes in cutting off luxuries, such as sugar and 
coffee, from the idle and improvident, and in discriminating 
against them in every allowable way by which they may be 



29 

shown that it is for their own advantage to go to work. 

There is, I think, no doubt that the plan of issuing small 
monthly cash payments to heads of families instead of annuity 
clothing, would work well, at least among the more advanced 
bands of Sioux. These Indians need to learn the use of money 
and they cannot get much further on without it. Shoes, tin- 
ware, and harness should be made and mended by the boys who 
have learned their trades at Hampton and Carlisle, and the 
Indians, with a little money in their pockets, would become cus- 
tomers instead of pauper beneficiaries, greatly to the encourage- 
ment of their self-respect. They will now sell or exchange an 
article which they do not happen to want, far below its real val- 
ue, in order to get something which they do want; an abuse 
which would correct itself under the new system. 

The extension of our criminal law over the reservation was 
nominally accomplished by Section 9 of the last Indian Appro- 
priation Bill. The wording of the Act, which leaves it an un- 
certainty whether the Territorial or United States conrts shall 
take cognizance of Indians' crimes, has however prevented it 
from going into effect. No appropriation was voted to cover 
the expense of trial in the Territorial courts, which would ac- 
cordingly decline to proceed in such cases. Two instances of 
offenses under this new statute came within my knowledge dur- 
ing my recent stay on the reservation. 

A few days before I reached Lower Brule, an Indian named 
Handsome Elk shot another Indian dead and stole his daugh- 
ter. He had not been put under arrest, and was roaming about 
in a spirit of apparent defiance, saying that he hoped they 
would not send a white man after him, as he had never killed 
any white man yet and should be sorry to do so. Six weeks 
later I was at Pine Ridge. There I heard that a fortnight be- 
fore Little Moon had attempted to kill Cut-Meat, shooting the 
horse behind which he took shelter. Cut-Meat was unarmed. 



30 

Agent McGillycuddy, with characteristic efficiency, had instant- 
ly taken up the matter and rnade it a "test case" to try the op- 
eration of the new law. The man was brought before the 
Court Commissioner and sent to Deadwood, where he is held 
for trial in January. It is, however, still an open question wheth- 
er he can be tried in either court, and the w^ording of the new 
Act should undoubtedly be amended during the coming session. 

■ The educational problem, than which nothing can be 

more important, v/as studied by me in the light of school work 
at all the Agencies. A curious sort of logic seems to prevail 
regarding Government schools among the Indians. It is said 
that they are not doing their work perfectly, and consequently 
that we don't need any more of them. The truth is, that the 
system of Reservation schools is not a system at all, but a series 
of disconnected experiments. The Agent should not have 
entire responsibility for the school work at his Agency, not so 
much because he is likely to abuse his trust by the appointment 
of incompetent relatives, as because the schools need more 
time, thought, attention, than he can by any possibility give. I 
saw the wives and daughters of Agents holding positions in the 
schools at three out of the six Agencies which I visited, and it 
was my impression that they were in every case fully as compe- 
tent persons as could probably have been found elsewhere. 
But the schools lack a head — they want comprehensiveness and 
method. I was greatly struck by the complete isolation of the 
various Sioux Agencies. A homogeneous people, closely inter- 
related, are broken up into a collection of petty governments. 
In some instances the Agents have never met, and are al- 
most wholly unacquainted with one another's methods of hand- 
ling their common difficulties. The schools on the great Sioux 
Reserve should bear some relation to each other as parts of a 
whole. 

I visited six Agency boarding schools, tour of which im- 



31 

pressed me as very creditable ; in two the discipline and general 
manaq;ement were particularly fine. The inferior teaching is 
the weakest point. These positions offer few inducements to 
first-rate teachers. 

The school of the Benedictine Fathers at Standing Rock 
was the worst taught and most generally depressing that I saw 
It seems unfortunate that such a blot should be found upon the 
-otherwise admirable work at this Agency. Dr. McGillycuddy's 
large school at Pine Ridge, which, when complete, will accom. 
modate two hundred and fifty children, connected with an excel- 
lent farm of twenty five acres, and new training shops which will 
employ twenty- five apprentices, is the most thoroughly equipped 
and effective Government school on the Reservation. There is 
ample provision for industrial training for boys, in which these 
schools are commonly deficient. 

The day school in the Indian village is, to my mind, the 
most important and the most neglected point in the whole field. 
Its contact with Indian life is closer than that of any other, 
its influence is great and ought to be greater than it is. It is 
difficult to realize the isolation, the remoteness of these scatter- 
ed centres of civilization— perhaps forty miles distant from the 
agency and sixty miles from the railroad. The solitary teacher 
living alone — or it may be the brother and sister, or husband and 
wife — are almost absolutely cut off from communication with 
the outside world. Their little world is the scattering camp of 
tepees and log houses — the one-story school house with living 
rooms attached, the only frame building in the settlement, ex- 
cept there be a mission chapel as well. Sometimes the Govern- 
ment teacher is the only missionary on the ground. 

It may easily be seen that the benefit of all this to the com- 
munity is not to be measured by the average attendance in 
school or by the proficiency of the children in mental arith- 
metic or the Third Reader. It is their object lesson in civiliza- 



32 

tion. The neatly kept rooms, the neatly dressed teacher, the 
regular hours, countless details are seen and studied and more 
or less unconsciously imitated. A new element is introduced 
into their lives, which they but half comprehend, yet compre- 
hend enough to know that it is for their good and to desire it. 
No doubt at first there is the expectation of some actual visible 
advantage, rather than an intense thirst for knowledge. This 
is surely fair. The school children ought to be the best dressed 
and the best fed as well as the best behaved children in the vil- 
lage. To this end, soap and water should always be provided in 
a warm and convenient place, and clean face and hands and well 
brushed hair demanded of every child. The women of the village 
ougnt regularly to meet and sew for them with materials furnished 
by the agent from the stock of annuity clothing. The lunch of 
coffee and hard tack which is usually given at noon should be 
prepared and served by the children themselves in such a-way 
as to be an important lesson in itself. On stated days in the 
week or hours in the day, there ought to be regular sewing class- 
es and other simple industrial training. Certain of these things 
are done more or less systematically ; there should be perfect 
system. Nor can it be too strongly reiterated that rules for the 
management of these schools cannot be laid down at a distance- 
There must be frequent and competent inspection, encourage- 
ment and criticism to insure successful results. 

1 have spoken of the inevitable influence upon Indian life 
of this camp school. The outjide work which may be done de- 
pends solely upon the interest and energy of the representative 
of civilization. Several of the teachers told me that the wom- 
en of the camp came to them to learn to make "raised bread." 
This is really an important step. The fried Indian bread, made 
very light with baking powder, although palatable enough, 
when fresh, is unwholesome stuf?. A capable little school mis- 



tress on the Rosebud Reserve, whose children showed very 
plainly the effects of their training, had many strong holds upon 
the people. She visited the sick, gave out medicines, got up 
occasional entertainments, and "when I had an assistant, I 
taught a class of young men in the evening." It is a great ad- 
vantage, by the way, that the workers should be two, and when- 
ever the number of children in school will warrant it, an assis- 
tant should be given. There is no time to be lost in fulfilling 
our promises to the Sioux, and establishing good day schools 
under competent general supervision, in every Indian village. 

I have touched upon some of the demands of the political 
situation, which seems to me comparatively clear and by no 
means discouraging. The missionary field is full of inspiration 
and hope. The difference between the two is too often the differ- 
ence between the grudging allowance and the lovmggift, the. cold 
sense of duty and the eager spirit of self-sacrifice. Whatever 
IS mechanical or mercenary or dreary in the Government work 
of civilization becomes generous, and warm and spontaneous in 
the labor of the mission. The mission boardinp schools are 
■undoubtedly of a far higher order than the Government boarding 
schools. The Congregational Church, a pioneer in the 
field, has the large Normal School at Santee for its educa- 
tional centre, under Dr. Alfred L. Riggs, son of the veteran mis- 
sionary. A feature of the work here is the strong missionary 
spirit and the stress which is laid upon the training of native 
workers. The children learn to read and sing in their own 
tongue as well as in English. 

Bishop Hare's plan in establishing the Episcopal schools 
has been to have them small enough to be thoroughly home- 
like and widely scattered for the sake of wider influence. St. 
Paul's School, for boys, at Yan'^ton Agency, Hope School, at 
Springfield, Dakota for boys and girls, St. John's School, for 
girls, three miles above Cheyenne River Agency, and St. Mary's' 



34 

for girls, originally at Santee, now rebuilt on the Rosebud 
Reserve, admirably fulfil these conditions. Springfield is a 
small town just outside the Reservation, and its spirit of good 
will toward, and substantial encouragement of this Indian 
school are a convincing answer to many unfounded accusations 
of bitter prejudice on the part of the border people. The establish- 
ment of more such schools in well-selected frontier towns would 
undoubtebly be a wise policy. 

Mr. and Mrs. Kinney's school at Cheyenne River is a com- 
plete model — thoroughly practical and amazingly attractive. 
The girls do all the work of the house without servants, under 
the direction of Mrs. Kinney and her assistant, and the work is 
perfectly done. The teaching is of the finest ordei and the dis- 
cipline so good that one is not conscious of any discipline at all. 
The atmosphere is that of a refined and loving home. The 
success of the school among the Indians may be inferred from 
the fact that there were eighty applicants this yea: when only 
forty can be admitted, and this in spite of the unwillingness of 
parents to part with their girls. I cannot leave this part of the 
subject without referring to the high and lovely qualities of the 
women of the Episcopal mission a large share of its wonderful 
success. There is no other influence in the work so control- 
ling as the influence of motive and personality. This mission 
is fortunate in its Bishop, and the Bishjp is happy in his 
workers. 

Perhaps enough has been said to leave the impres- 
sion that the children who graduate from Eastern schools 
are not the only "civilized" Indians, that Reservation life is not 
wholly savage or inert, and that there is sympathy and opportu- 
nity and encouragement for the students who go back to their 
homes to reinforce the progressive movement among their peo- 
ple, already strong aud abundantly hopeful. Does Civilization 
civilize? that is the real question. If we have anything better 
to offer to the Indian in the place of what he has now, the in- 
stincts of self-preservation and the higher -instincts of the Di- 
vine nature in him will teach him to grasp the good gifc. The 
day of experiment m Indian civilization is over — let us have the 
effectual work. It is wicked and it is more than wicked — it is 
stupid to doubt the result. 

Huiuphni, I'd., Xovjmbcr, fSSj. 

5 %2 % 
















^0 ^ri* 









^. 



